A Day in the Life of Johnny Cade
by Gypsy Love
Summary: Just a little one shot about Johnny.
1. Chapter 1

He woke up and wondered if he had time to get to school. He knew his parents were passed out somewhere, maybe in the living room, his mother sleeping with her mouth open on the couch, his father on the floor. Maybe in their bedroom. Maybe his dad had stayed out all night at the bars, and maybe his mother had been with him, maybe not. Not that it mattered.

His room was small and sparsely furnished. There was a twin bed and a plain pine dresser that had splinters in all the drawers. That was it. He didn't have any posters, any pictures, nothing. Just his jean jacket crumpled on the top of the dresser.

He sat up, still wondering what time it was. Wondering if he even wanted to go to school. He hated it. There were too many socs there, eyeing him like he was trash. Teachers treated him like he was stupid, and half the time he agreed with them. Ponyboy liked school, but why wouldn't he? He always did well, he'd been put up a grade and all of that. Johnny closed his eyes against the bright sun coming into his room, the one window had no curtains. It was just smudged glass and a splintering wooden frame.

The morning was the one time he didn't worry much about his parents. They were never awake. They were always sleeping off the hangover. They were in their bedroom, his father snoring. He could smell the alcohol coming off of them, saw the empty cans of beer and empty bottles of vodka strewn around the kitchen and living room.

There was nothing to eat, just a stale box of cereal. Didn't matter, he wasn't hungry anyway. He shrugged into his jean jacket and took off for school. He still had time to get there.

He hadn't been to school in a few days but his teachers never expected him to do any of his assignments. He was pretty much failing English now as it was. Sometimes he could get Pony to do some make-up essays for him and then he'd pass the term. He thought that's what he'd do today. And of course Ponyboy would be here. He never skipped. Johnny scowled, thinking of it. Ponyboy was so lucky, in a way. No parents to worry about, cool older brothers who let him do anything, and plus he was smart and everything.

He passed a group of socs, smiling and laughing together, and they watched him walk by. He could just hear them, 'why do we have to go to the same school as that trash?'

"Johnny! Hey, Johnnycake!" Johnny looked up at Two-bit, and he smiled.

"Hey," he said, cringing as Two-bit slapped him on the back. His back was sore from a run in with his old man and Two-bit should have known that, but he never really thought. He was scatter-brained.

"So, you decided to show up today?" Two-bit said, and Johnny nodded, kind of wishing he had decided to skip. Sometimes he didn't know why he didn't just quit, he wasn't learning much of anything anyway.

"Hey, Johnny," Johnny looked over at Ponyboy, and he bit his lip, thinking how he wanted Pony do to that essay for English class for him. He was in the same grade as Pony now, despite being two years older, but since Pony got put up a grade and he was held back they were in the same grade. But he wasn't in any of the same classes. Pony was in the smart classes and he was in the dumb ones.

"Listen, uh, Pony, I was wondering if you could help me with this English essay thing I have to do…"

Two-bit had wandered off, flirting with some middle class girls, who were kind of smirking at his antics. Johnny watched him and didn't look at Ponyboy.

"Yeah, sure. Of course I can help you," He looked at him quick, he was as handsome as Soda. He was nice, smart, a good friend. But he didn't get it, what it was like to have to ask for shit like this, to depend on people because you couldn't do it yourself. Johnny took a deep breath, thinking about his drunk parents and shitty neighborhood and limited prospects. They'd always be limited. Pony only lived a few houses down from him, and it was all the same now. He was a greaser, too. But it wouldn't always be like this for him. He'd be able to do whatever he wanted to. Johnny felt the dull jealousy kind of pulsing through his bloodstream.

"Thanks," he said softly, and walked off toward his homeroom.

"Johnny Cade," his homeroom teacher said, a tall, thin man who smelled of cloying cologne. It filled Johnny's nostrils and he nearly gagged, "you decided to grace us with your presence?"

"Yeah," Johnny said, ducking his head. He didn't like that kind of funny, sly comment. He wished again that he'd skipped. God, he hated school.

He heard variations of that comment from most of his teachers, some of them just writing him off as a low life greaser who'd probably quit school anyway, but some of them gave him that sad, sympathetic look like they wanted to help him, save him.

School was finally over. He breathed a sigh of relief as the final bell rang. He thought he probably wouldn't show up tomorrow. Outside the double glass doors on the steps of the school he lit up a cigarette and waited for Ponyboy. Two-bit might show up, too, but maybe not.

"Hey, Johnny, got a weed?" Ponyboy said, his book bag slung over his shoulder. Johnny didn't even have a school bag, he never brought any books home. His classes rarely assigned much homework anyway, the teachers knew the kids in those classes probably wouldn't do it anyway.

"Yeah, here you go," he said, handing him one. Pony lit it and took a drag.

"Wanna go play football or something?" Pony said, and Johnny nodded, filled with the relief that school was over, for today at least.

They played football for a while in the vacant lot and then walked over to the DX station where Soda and Steve worked to get some free cokes.

"Jesus, Johnny, what did you do, go to school today? I thought you'd given it up," Steve said, and Johnny didn't say anything.

"Leave him alone," Soda said absently, handing him a glass bottle of coke, cold with condensation.

It was closing time at the station, and the light was dim in the sky. Johnny thought he might go home and just see how things were. Maybe his parents would be okay tonight. It was a hope as dim as the sky.

He heard the fighting before he even got to the door and he thought of just taking off, but instead he went up the rickety wooden steps to the closed in porch, and he could smell the rotting garbage and the beer.

One look at his old man and he knew he was drunk. It was only seven or eight o'clock and he was cocked off his ass, and Johnny kind of pulled into himself as his dad looked at him with that bleary, drunken stare.

"Johnny, you little shit," his father said, coming toward him, and he pulled on his wrists and pulled him forward, and Johnny squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the blows.

Outside, the fire at the lot warming him, the cigarette dangling from his fingers, his eye watering where he'd been hit, Johnny buttoned up his jean jacket and thought about nothing. Nothing at all.


	2. Chapter 2

Johnny thought he might sleep outside, curled up on a park bench somewhere. It wasn't like his parents would care. But he could crash at the Curtis's. He just didn't want to go home. He could feel the places where his father had hit him, could feel the dull ache, and he had to admit that being hit was better than being ignored.

He walked toward their house, slipping a cigarette from the pack in his pocket and lighting it with a practiced hand. He inhaled and started coughing, and he thought he'd been smoking a little too much lately. But he liked to smoke when he was upset. That seemed to be all the time.

Before he got up to their porch he could hear them. They were talking and laughing, and the T.V. was blaring. He stood still for a moment in the darkness just beyond where the porch light could reach. He was so jealous of Pony sometimes he could taste it.

He didn't knock, none of them ever did, he just pushed on the screen door and let himself in. Darry had said, back when his parents had died, he said he'd never lock the door and they were always welcome.

"Hey, Johhnycake," Soda said from his place on the couch. Soda was all stretched out, looking as relaxed as a cat. Johnny nodded at him, inching his way into the room. He headed for Soda and Ponyboy's room.

Pony was at his desk, head bent over some homework. He looked up when he heard the door open.

"Hey, Johnny," he said, and Johnny could feel him looking at his eye, which was still watering and starting to swell shut.

"Uh, I'm gonna crash here tonight, alright?" he said, finishing his cigarette and pitching it into the ashtray. Pony was still looking at his eye.

"Your dad?" he questioned softly, and Johnny nodded.

"Yeah, he's been drinking a lot lately, both of them have. It's just better not to be there for awhile," Johnny said, and Ponyboy was surprised at that amount of explanation. It was more than Johnny's usual two words.

They hung out in his room for awhile, Ponyboy doing homework and Johnny half napping. After a beating he was always more tired than usual, it was like being drugged. He was in and out of sleep as Pony finished with his homework and started talking. He was talking about cute girls at school and his classes and stuff from books and Johnny was only half-listening, but he heard enough to wish he had Pony's life.

A couple of hours later they were both awakened by a crash in the living room.

"What was that?" Ponyboy said, his hair sticking up everywhere. Johnny rubbed his eyes and shrugged. He wasn't too worried about it, though. Some drunk guy crashing here for the night, maybe. Soda tripping over something.

Johnny laid back down but Pony got up to go see, and a second later he was back with a drunken Dallas in tow.

"It was just Dally," he said, and Johnny blinked awake again, feeling like he might not be able to get back to sleep this time.

"Hey, Dally," he said, looking at Dallas from his one good eye.

"Jesus, Johnny, what happened to you?" Dally said, looking fiercely angry, making Johnny wonder what the big deal was. This wasn't his first black eye, it wouldn't be his last.

"It was just my old man, Dal, that's all," Johnny said, cringing back a little. He could see how drunk Dallas was, he could smell it. He didn't generally trust drunk people.


	3. Chapter 3

"C'mon, kid, let's go," Dally said, pulling on Johnny's arm. Johnny let himself be pulled up and he stood by the bed, feeling the last of that sleepy feeling slip away. It was getting late, and he wasn't sure where Dallas was going to drag him off to, but he was thinking maybe he'd go out tonight and skip school tomorrow. Ponyboy was still at his desk, his books spread out before him, and he was watching them from the corner of his eye.

"Alright," Johnny said, shrugging out of Dallas' grasp. Dally lit a cigarette and pointed toward Johnny's watering and swelling shut eye.

"Who did that?" he said again, and Johnny sighed, looked down.

"I told you, Dal, my old man. It's no big deal," It wasn't a big deal like if it had been a soc, or a whole pack of them who had done it. Of course he wouldn't have got away that easily if it had been the socs.

Outside, the stars twinkling dimly above them, Johnny walking fast to keep up with Dallas, he could figure where they were going. A bar. The bars around here didn't care if you were old enough to drink. They just cared if you had money. And Dallas always had money.

There wasn't a pin ball machine at this bar, which Johnny preferred, but there was a couple of pool tables. They shot a few games of pool and Dallas went and got them a couple of beers. The beer went down nice and easy, giving Johnny a nice little buzz. He almost felt guilty when he drank, thinking of his parents. His father would drink in the morning, diving for the bottle of vodka and praying there was something left in it. If there wasn't he'd shake and puke for a good half hour, or he'd send Johnny out for some alcohol. Sometimes he gave him money and sometimes he didn't. If he didn't have money he'd say, "just get it," his voice a growl, his cheeks and chin black with beard stubble. And Johnny would nod and go out and steal it if he had to. He would steal it because he knew he'd get beat if he didn't come back with something. And that had happened before, his father sick with alcohol withdrawal but still lashing him with his belt, and Johnny would grit his teeth and take it.

His mother drank, too. She drank down shots of vodka or whiskey. Rarely did his parents drink wine or beer, but they would when there was nothing else. And drunk, they'd laugh and fall into each other and then the laughter would get a hysterical edge and turn to anger, and they'd end up screaming at each other, and his father would sometimes beat his mother, and she'd cringe in the corners of the rooms. It had been this way for years, and Johnny wondered why he still thought things could be any different.

So when Dally offered him another beer he took it, despite thinking he'd end up just like his parents. Alcohol made him feel good, it must have made them feel good once, too. He was going down their road, he could see it, but felt unable to stop it, like he was unable to stop anything in his life.

When the bar closed down and Dally had drank about a six pack and Johnny drank nearly that much they stumbled outside, and the chill of the air made Johnny flip up the collar of his jean jacket. He felt almost sick and prayed he wouldn't puke. They headed back to their street.

Near Ponyboy's house Dally stopped and tugged on Johnny's jacket to get him to stop, too. So he stopped walking and dug a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it. Dally wasn't really near drunk at all, maybe just a little buzzed. Johnny could feel the world start to swing in lazy arcs around him and he swayed. Gently Dally touched the edge of Johnny's hurt eye.

"Listen, Johnny," he started, looking critically at the bruises around his eye, "don't go home tonight, alright?" The worry that was in Dally's voice almost surprised Johnny, and he blinked, realizing he didn't think anyone really worried about him. He thought they all figured it was just normal, it was just how it was, Johnny got beat at home, so what? But he saw something different in Dallas' eyes.

"Yeah," he said quietly, looking down, smoking his cigarette. It sure did taste good after all that alcohol.


	4. Chapter 4

"Time to get up!" Darry called as the sun came into the room full force. Johnny covered his face with his arm. He had kind of passed out on the floor and Ponyboy had covered him with an extra blanket. The floor wasn't all that comfortable but it was better than sleeping outside. At least he was warm.

Soda was already up and getting ready for work. Ponyboy was just a shapeless hump under the blankets on the bed. Johnny stood up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. In the kitchen Darry had breakfast ready, and Johnny sat down to have some. He wasn't all that hungry, he never was. It amazed him, though, how Darry was more like a parent to Pony and Soda than his parents were to him. He couldn't remember his parents ever making breakfast, ever waking him up for school, ever doing anything parents were supposed to do.

"Johnny," Darry said, concern evident in his tone and his expression. Johnny knew he was looking at his bruised eye, and it hurt worse today than yesterday. He could hardly see out of it. He touched it and winced, didn't say anything. Darry knew well enough it was just his old man, they all knew.

He had a headache and he was thirsty, he knew it was a hangover. He always felt guilty when he had a hangover, like he was being punished for drinking. He shouldn't drink, he knew that. He'd end up like his parents or worse. But sometimes he couldn't help it. It was so available here. Everyone in this neighborhood drank.

"Going to school today, Johnny?" Ponyboy said, spooning cereal into his mouth. Johnny shrugged, not sure. He didn't want to go. Maybe he just wouldn't.

"I don't know," he said, and Ponyboy didn't try to pressure him into going.

Going to school wouldn't matter because at some basic level he wasn't getting it. He was still failing tests and getting lost and at this rate he might stay back again. And what was the real point? He wouldn't ever go to college, they couldn't afford that and he'd never get a scholarship. He'd just end up at some dead end job so what was the point of feeling stupid at school everyday?

Soda and Darry had left for work, Ponyboy was smoking a cigarette and glancing at the clock. Johnny drank a full glass of water and cringed at the taste of it, after all that alcohol. He lit up a cigarette, too, and tried to decide about school. Maybe he'd just go.

He walked to the school with Ponyboy, and he felt the dread gathering in his stomach. What didn't he do for today? He didn't even know. It would be a surprise in every class, the teachers giving him those vaguely disappointed looks.

"See ya," Ponyboy said, taking off for his homeroom, and Johnny watched him go. He went slowly to his homeroom, eyeing the socs in the hallways on the way there.

English class, and the teacher handed out a test. Johnny closed his eyes and sighed. He gripped the pencil tight in his hand and read the first question. He had to read it a couple of times because the letters sometimes looked backwards to him. Tests took him so long and he hardly ever finished them, that was part of why he kept failing them.

School was not going well. It was a test day or something, more than one class had handed out a test with incomprehensible questions. He had been slammed into the lockers by a stupid soc, and he still felt hung over. He wished he hadn't come to school today. He lit up a cigarette in the bathroom and was just starting to feel a little better when a teacher stuck his head in and told him to put out the cigarette or he'd have detention.

He saw Ponyboy at lunch and envied him with the dull envy he had felt for so long now. Ponyboy didn't know how good he had things in some ways. He could just read anything and instantly understand it, he didn't have to struggle with backward words and jumbled up letters, he didn't have to sound out the damn words to get them.


	5. Chapter 5

There were days and weeks that he avoided his house and his parents. Days and weeks when he crashed at friends' houses and outside, the night chilling him, and the newspapers he managed to wrap up in never kept the chill away. But then sometimes he kept going home, kept hoping that it would be different somehow. Wishing that his father would stop hitting him and his mother would stop yelling at him, and sometimes they did stop, and when they did they hardly seemed to know that he was there.

He was still in school, barely able to keep his eyes open in one boring class after another, and he hadn't done one single thing he was supposed to have done. A teacher, newer and younger than the tenured old teachers that tended to dominate this school, she was looking at him with a concerned kind of sadness that Johnny never dealt with very well.

She came over to his desk and he tried to keep himself awake, swallowed hard and sat up a little.

"Johnny," she said, and he could feel her looking at the dark purple bruise around his eye, "I want you to come and see me after class," He nodded and sighed. She wasn't the first teacher to make such a request, but they all tended to be newer teachers, ones who somehow haven't given up yet.

The empty classroom smelled of chalk dust, and Johnny could see it floating in the air. The teacher looked like she was in her mid-twenties, her hair done up in a ponytail that made her look young. Johnny hunched down in his jean jacket, stared at his sneakers. He traced the floor tile with the toe of his sneaker and wished he wasn't there.

Her class was English, one of his worst. He looked at the pictures of different authors that decorated the walls by the ceiling, and he didn't know who hardly any of them were. He looked at the wooden shelves that were crammed full of thick reference books, several dictionaries and thesauruses and encyclopedias. He'd seen Ponyboy with these kind of books open and spread out before him and he'd jot something down and then look something else up, and nothing would distract him. Not the noise of the T.V. and radio blaring, not Soda and Steve mock fighting and then real fighting, not Dally cussing and cursing about whatever had him angry at the moment. Johnny would watch him silently, smoking one cigarette after the other, feeling intimated by the whole thing. He couldn't do it.

"Johnny, you didn't have any of your homework," she started. Her name was Miss Cormier. She said that but not accusatory or mean, it was kind of an awed statement.

"Yeah," he said, glancing up at her.

"What happened to your eye?" she said.

"Nothing, just a fight," he said, hating this black eye that everyone was questioning him about.

"You've got to start doing the homework, and you miss a lot of school. It's hard to understand the material if you're not here when I teach it," she said, and he shifted from one foot to the other.

"I want you to stay one day a week after school and we'll work on this. I want to work on your reading comprehension and writing skills to start with," she said, and Johnny widened his eyes. Stay after school once a week? To deal with this terrible class he just couldn't get? But he just nodded. Maybe he would. Maybe he'd stay after once a week and he'd get better at school and his parents wouldn't drink as much and he wouldn't have to always be avoiding his house.

He left her classroom and thought she was wasting her time. He believed the other teachers who thought he was dumb and treated him like he was. Not everyone could be like Ponyboy, he knew that. He knew that most of all.


	6. Chapter 6

He thought of just not going, not staying after school with that teacher because what good would it do anyway? He wasn't any good at school and he never had been. That was why he stayed back last year. He didn't get it, and even doing homework and studying for tests didn't seem to help so he'd given up on that, too. Ponyboy was good at school. You were either good at it or not.

But then he kind of thought, why not? Maybe it would help. He needed help with school, he knew that. Ponyboy doing essays and assignments for him wasn't really helping.

Throwing the football around the vacant lot for awhile with Ponyboy, they stopped when the light faded from the sky and then smoked cigarettes leaning up against the fence.

"So I'm gonna stay after school with this teacher for extra help in reading and stuff," he told Pony, looking down but glancing up at him.

"Oh, yeah?" Ponyboy said, kind of neutral.

"Yeah, what do you think?" Johnny said, inhaling deeply on his cigarette.

"It's a good idea…yeah, it'll probably help," Ponyboy said.

He felt kind of nervous, the way he always did around teachers or cops or parents, anyone with any kind of authority made him anxious. The school seemed weird after everyone had left, like it was too big and too echo-ey or something. Chalk dust swirled in the air. But Miss Cormier smiled at him, and she wasn't threatening, she wasn't making him feel bad like some other teachers would.

"Alright, I'm going to read this passage to you, so just listen, okay?" she said, her voice almost soothing. Johnny nodded, sitting at one of the desks, slumped down, his legs stretched out in front of him. She read it, it was only a paragraph or two. Then she asked questions about it. He answered her correctly, and she smiled at him.

"That's good, okay, now you read this passage here and then I'll ask you questions about it,"

"Out loud?" he said, dreading that. He hated reading out loud, hated how halting it was, and how he wouldn't get all the words right.

"No, read it to yourself," she said. That would be better. So he read it, sounding out some of the words, skipping the ones he didn't know. He couldn't answer all the questions about it, either. Miss Cormier looked at him, puzzled.

"I think you might have some kind of reading comprehension problem," she said. He stared at the desk, looking at the graffiti that was on it. Reading comprehension problem. That was just great.

"We can deal with this, though, if we have some idea that this is what might be going on, we can work on this, Johnny," she said. He thought of Ponyboy again, how he could do all of this without even trying, how he was reading these books that were so beyond him it wasn't funny. He felt the dull jealousy pulse through him.

"You're absent a lot, too," she said, looking at him. He nodded and looked away.

"How come?" she said. He shrugged, not wanting to really go into it.

"And this black eye, you have a lot of bruises…are they all from fights?" she said, her voice gentle but persistent. Johnny sighed, knowing where this was going.

"Yeah," he said.


End file.
